STAT 3480

Paul Diver is awesome! As a stat major, this is a must take elective. He's very understanding and the course material is actually very useful. Doing the homework and labs almost guarantees you a solid grade.

Mr. Diver is an understanding, nice instructor. He's a good lecturer, lax on the students, and lax on the workload. He commutes in from D.C., so I can't imagine that he has a ton of free time for grading either. The course itself I think might describe that prior knowledge of R isn't required - I survived the class without knowing a single thing about R, but I was also a CS major going in. There are (well-documented) labs throughout the semester you need to complete using R, but I managed it. If you think you might have trouble picking up R as you go, take SAS and R or some other class where you learn R first before this class and you'll have a better time with it.
Final exam was this big stats project which is doable if you've been following along all semester. If you're having trouble with R or the class, ask after class because it is really hard to schedule time with Mr. Diver otherwise since he's like 4 hours away. So don't expect to have final-exam-office-hours type stuff because you need to have your questions ready for when he gives in-class work time.

Paul Diver is one of the best Statistics professors I've had at UVA. He is a great lecturer and a fair grader. The workload for this course is fair, and if you do all the homework and labs you are guaranteed a pretty good grade. I would not take this class without already having a basic knowledge of R. All in all, one of the best Statistics electives offered.